Mar. 17, 2017
11:45 pm JST

Mar. 18, 2017
02:29 am JST

Japan launched a new spy satellite on Friday, the country’s space agency said, as the region grows increasingly uneasy over North Korea’s quickening missile program.

Japan needs to do its fair share of defense, including intelligence gathering, and rely less on the U.S. in the coming years. It will take a strong, assertive, and largely independent Japan to take care of itself in East Asia and to eventually resolve long-standing territorial disputes with China, Korea and Russia.